Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The SDLP plan for the restoration of the Assembly, the North-South ministerial bodies and the British-Irish Council through the appointment of an administrative panel to run the Departments is being raised in the review. The party will pursue it further when the discussions resume. There are several other constructive suggestions and proposals. Every party has put forward comprehensive suggestions and positions which are now part of the review process. Some have been tabled, some have already been discussed and some are continuing.

Ultimately, in any deal, elements of those plans put forward by parties will be taken on board. There are some very good ideas, not only to devolve the institutions, but to give sustainability to them. We do not want to continue with a stop-start process, we want to achieve something that is sustainable, bedded down and will hold. Many of the proposals put forward by all parties are useful and would constructively help to do that.

In terms of the review, the parties do not meet often enough collectively. They meet separately, but I would rather we had more round table discussions. Perhaps when we clear some of the other more fundamental issues we will get to a position where people are able to sit down and deal with each other. We may then be able to get more parties around the table. We would make far more progress if it were a round table process because we would have to table papers and get everybody's collective view on them. That has not happened for one reason or another. The UUP pulled out of that process which creates a difficulty and the DUP and Sinn Féin are not yet dealing directly with each other. I think there is engagement on the papers and that we can make progress.

Some of the suggestions made here have also been feeding in to other parties and are reflected in their position papers. If we can support a review process, I expect that after the election, there will be at least three or four weeks of work on the review prior to the summer and then it will start up again two days a week. That is probably the best way of moving things forward.

There is no difficulty on citizenship in regard to Northern Ireland. We have that worked out and we made a joint declaration with the British. It does not create any problem whatsoever in the North or for people in the United Kingdom.

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